Jenny first thought
she was preganant in the middle of August. She took a home pregnancy test
only to see it turn out negative. Two weeks later and two months late, she
went to the doctor's office thinking something was physically wrong. To
her surprise she found out she was expecting.

Jenny went to the hospital in the middle of January and discovered she has
gallstones. They performed an ultrasound at that time, and we discovered
we were to have a boy.

Later, in February, one of Jenny's gallstones got stuck in her common bile
duct. This caused her to get Pancreatitis, a very serious, and sometimes
life-threatening illness. She was transferred to Baystate Medical Center,
in Springfield, MA. She was put on the High-Risk Labor and Delivery floor.
She was in Pre-Term Labor at 31 weeks. It looked like Aaron was going to
be early, but luckily they were able to stop the labor. At the end of the
Pre-Term Labor, she was now 3-4 cm dialated and 50% effaced. Jenny spent
the next week recovering from the Pancreatitis and weighing her options: get
her gallbladder removed, have a muscle cut to allow stones to pass without
incident, or go home and take her chances. She eventually decided to get the
muscle cut and it seems the decision was a good one.

The week of April 7, Jenny was having regular contractions, mostly 5 minutes
apart. Some were really strong, but unfortunately they weren't getting closer
together. Jenny went to the Doctor's for a regular appointment on Friday
and asked to be induced. She was sure she and the baby were ready for labor
and didn't want to wait. The doctor didn't feel the need to induce her however.
She had an internal exam and discovered she was now 5 cm and 100% effaced.
The doctor didn't think she'd last the weekend. She was concerned about
the higher blood pressure she'd discovered and decided to send Jenny over
to the hospital to be monitored and have blood tests run. The tests revealed
she was on the verge of Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (high blood pressure).
The doctor decided Jenny should be induced.

Jenny made a quick call to Todd to let him know tonight was the night and
then she was transferred to another room. They hooked her up to an IV drip
of pitocin, a drug which induces labor at 6 pm. She immediately began to
have contractions. Todd arrived at about 6:30 pm and the contractions became
much stronger. Jenny asked for an epidural but was told she'd have to wait
an hour, until the contractions became more regular. At 6:45, the nurse decided
to check her because she was in so much pain. To her surprise, Jenny had
dialated 2 cm (to 7cm) in just 45 minutes! The nurse called the doctor and
when the doctor checked, just fifteen minutes later, Jenny was fully dialated
(10 cm)! No wonder she was in such pain!

The time for drugs had passed, so the only way to relieve the pain was to
push. Jenny was really tired and just wanted to sleep, never mind pushing!
But she pushed anyway. She pushed for about a half an hour and Aaron was
born. He came so quickly Jenny had to have an episiotomy. Aaron came out raring
to go and peed on the doctor immediately! He got Apgar scores of 9 and 10
(out of 10).

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